Greater New Orleans

Photographer Zack Smith, in front in a red flannel shirt, with a gang at Voodoo Fest.
One of Smith's photos from years of backstage photo booth photography at Voodoo are going on exhibit in Preservation Hall's courtyard through Oct. 26-Nov. 26.
(Photo by Ann Maloney, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)

Zack Smith has been an official staff photographer for the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival since 2009. When other people meander through the Fair Grounds, soaking in the sounds and nibbling crawfish Monica, he races from stage to stage, a neckful of credentials flapping, in the hot sun to catch the headliners in action. Even when his own band, Rotary Downs, is booked to play, he only takes 30 minutes or so of down time afterward before he’s back on the job.

In the mid-2000’s, Smith filed photos from Voodoo for local publications like Antigravity magazine, and the national music website Jambase.com. “It was my ticket,” he said.

Like at Jazz Fest, he shot from the wings and in the photo pit, capturing the shows as the audience saw them. But backstage, he said, was a different animal. The scene behind the scenes in City Park, where musicians and production workers socialize under the trees, began to intrigue him more than the performances themselves.

The atmosphere at Voodoo, Smith said, is less hectic than at Jazz Fest. Musicians don’t have several festival appearances to make in one day, or multiple gigs to prepare for during the marathon week. Many have just returned to town after summers spent on the road, and look forward to Voodoo as a chance to reconnect. Plus, backstage at Voodoo is pretty sweet: huge trees shade swaths of grass, perfect for lazing in the October breeze. The stages that host most local bands – Preservation Hall and WWOZ, and until last year, the Bingo Parlour – are lined up in a row, making backstage visits easy. And not incidentally, there are lots of bars back there.

“Voodoo is one big hang,” he said. “You play your set, and then you hang out all day. Your friends who are playing other stages stop by for a drink.”

Exit Stage Right, Smith’s new book of photos taken backstage at Voodoo, captures that world in a series of portraits and candid pictures shot on medium and large-format film cameras between 2008-11. The book goes on sale Friday, Oct. 26, at Preservation Hall, where Smith’s Voodoo collection will be on view for the next month.

It was the Hall that first helped him get his backstage project going, Smith said. In 2008, he and Ben Jaffe decided to set up a portrait booth behind the Hall stage at Voodoo to take formal shots of the artists booked there. The wallpaper company Flavor Paper designed a special logo to use as the backdrop, combining the logos of the festival and the Hall. That year, his portrait station stayed put; he grabbed artists as they went on and off the stage and took posed shots.

“But it was too much, lugging around that backdrop,” Smith said. This year, he is bringing a backdrop again – panels of wood papered with vintage wallpaper found in a warehouse adjacent to Bywater art space the Pearl – but he’ll also travel.

“I make a lap, run into friends who are basically working – they just got off stage, or they’re stage managing,” he said.

Being mobile means more of a chance to catch the denizens of Voodoo in their natural backstage habitat. Over the years, Smith experimented: some portraits were deliberately formal, taken against the plain white of the dressing-room tents, or plain black backdrops. Some were more organic, using the gnarled, leafy trees of City Park in juxtaposition with the performers in their bright stage clothes. And some were more candid and intimate, catching musicians sharing a laugh, or bartenders and stage managers taking a break to clown around.

For his exhibition at Preservation Hall, Smith mounted about 30 prints to varnished, cherry-toned wood. Those photos will be on view at Preservation Hall (726 St Peter St., 504.522.2841), during venue hours from Oct. 26 until Nov. 26.

Exit Stage Right, the coffee-table book collection of 78 pieces, will be available to order at the Hall during the run of the show and at zacksmith.com. A limited edition of 50 copies is on sale for $175 and includes a signed and numbered print.

Alison Fensterstock writes about music and popular culture for NOLA.com and The Times-Picayune. Contact her at 504-826-3393 or afensterstock@nola.com. Follow her on Twitter at @AlisonF_NOLA.